AAP
NSW Labor frontbencher Steve Whan has urged voters to focus their attention on the policies of Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell, after a Newspoll showed the government faced annihilation next year.
The poll, published by News Ltd on Tuesday, shows the Labor government languishing with primary support of just 24 per cent, and trailing the coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 39 to 61 per cent.
Mr Whan, Emergency Services Minister in the unpopular Keneally government, urged voters to scrutinise the coalition more heavily ahead of the state election on March 26.
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“People need to focus on what the opposition is actually committing to for the next election,” Mr Whan told reporters in Sydney.
“The people of NSW need to start questioning and asking the opposition what it is they’re doing.
“Barry O’Farrell is going for the small target approach – so far that has been fine for him, he’s been doing it for four years, but now he’s got to actually show some policies.”
Asked if he was confident of winning his own seat of Monaro in southern NSW, held by 6.3 per cent, well below the 10 to 15 per cent swings predicted by pollsters, Mr Whan said, “I’m happy to go on my record to the electorate.
“I’ve been the member for Monaro for two terms now,” he said.
“If anybody looks at the list of things I’ve delivered, there is about 450 … separate items that I’ve delivered for the community that I represent.”
Mr O’Farrell said the coalition “took heart” from the latest Newspoll.
The opposition has 45 per cent primary support, according to the poll, while Mr O’Farrell leads Kristina Keneally as preferred premier by 40 per cent to 35 per cent.
“We’ll continue to work hard because we know that we have to get people who live in Labor seats to vote for Liberal-Nationals candidates,” he told Macquarie Radio.
“We take comfort that some of the practical and positive plans we’re putting out there, whether it is about hospitals, about infrastructure, whether about policing, seem to have been noticed.”
Support for the NSW Greens fell two points to 15 per cent in Tuesday’s Newspoll, but it is still well ahead of the nine per cent recorded at the 2007 election.
The Greens are hoping to increase their numbers from four to six in the upper house, and win the inner-Sydney lower house seats of Marrickville and Balmain.
“These poll results are encouraging for the Greens in NSW, but we’re not taking success next March for granted,” Greens MP David Shoebridge said in a statement.
Source: www.smh.com.au
